title: Measuring perceived quality of measuring quality health care services in India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this paper is to understand the perception of patients towards health care services in Lucknow based on the 20-item scale.
  
  
  METHODS
  The 20-item scale was administered to 500 users of health care centres comprising a tertiary health centre, a state medical university and two missionary hospitals in Lucknow, India.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The scale was found to be reliable to a great extent with an overall Cronbach alpha value of 0.74. "Health personnel and practices" and "health care delivery" were found to be statistically significant in impacting the perception. Respondents were relatively less positive on items related to "access to services" and "adequacy of doctors for women". The tertiary health centre was rated poorer than the medical university and missionary hospitals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This tool may be applied for qualitative assessment of the services of health care programmes as well as health care centres of India.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The paper draws the attention of health policy makers in considering the requirements and opinions of patients to effect substantial change and significant improvement in the quality of the health care services for better and increased utilization of the services.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The paper fulfils the need of measuring perceived quality of health care services and points out that the improvement in health care services requires immediate and urgent attention from policy makers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Business Administration, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India. ritu_vnarang@yahoo.co.in
authors.forename: Ritu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Narang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010465:Perception; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards